Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/292

 and rare beauty, the which he had never seen before. But when he had turned over everything in his mind a good many times, and was feeling puzzled, weary, and very thirsty, he saw a tall old man, grey-bearded and hawk-nosed, come into the midst of the pleasaunce from the house, the same being in fact Master Torlesse, and his habit was a dark brown cloak with long hanging sleeves of tawny yellow, a black undervest, and a yellow cap on his head, shaped like a cap of maintenance, having on the front of it a jewell in silver, being the image of an eagle holding a serpent in its beak. And in his right hand was a long black wand, and from his baldrick hung a sword, and what Sir Philip saw afterwards you will find in the chests of the Court In Banco Domini of the old Lordship and Grand Seigneury of Burgavenny. The which parchments are marked on the outside "In the affair of the pardon of Philippus Meyrick de Caerwent, Miles Auratus, for the murder of Mauritius called Torlesse, a man of unknown lineage and estate." And as I myself, by the favour of the Clerk, have seen these strange documents, have indeed fingered them and held them under my nose for many hours together till I seemed to hear an ancient law-man reciting and droning the dim old story in my ears, I will make an abbreviature and digest of it for you using as far as I can the phrase of the original. The which beginneth somewhat as follows. In the year of our Saviour MCCCLXXII, the forty-fifth year of our Sovereign Lord King Edward third of that name since the Conquest, the fourth of our Lord